State Department Sets Guidelines for Revised Travel Ban

(CN) – With the limited travel ban set to go into effect Thursday night, the State Department has issued new guidelines to American embassies and consulates to apply to potential foreign visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries.

The new guidelines are scheduled to go into effect at 8 p.m. eastern time Thursday night following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to allow parts of President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban to proceed pending a resolution of litigation over the ban during the court’s next session.

In their ruling the justices said the Trump administration cannot impose the ban on anyone who has a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

However, the justices did not define what they meant by the phrase “bona fide relationship.”

On Wednesday night, the State Department issued its interpretation, telling its international staff that it defines a close family as being “a parent (including parent-in-law), a spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-­in­-law, daughter­-in-­law, and sibling, whether whole or half. This includes step relationships.”

But the State Department also listed a number of relationships that it does not include in its definition of a “close family.”

Not making the cut are grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers­-in-­law and sisters-in-­law, fiancés and any other “extended family members.”